My 2019 Blogging Goals

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Yes, I know, we are nearly halfway through February, but I had a rough start to 2019, and I feel like my brain went through a sawmill or something currently, so I am writing this just to TRY to regain some semblance of focus on the semi-chaotic runaway train approach I have had to blogging in the past year especially. I have, I admit, had a slightly sarcastic attitude to blog "goals" (see I can't even write the word without quotes ;-0) in the past.

I think because I have faced a lot of stress recently I just want something to focus on. I still hold the general attitude that my blog is an exercise in whimsy and overzealous self reflection at times, but I also like to kid myself that maybe some of my posts on body positivity or cancer awareness or, ya know, t.v. and stuff or whatever have somewhere along the line resonated with someone out there

So anyway. What are some areas I can improve on (within reason). I don't see myself ever becoming a fashion or lifestyle blogger at this point. I think when I first started blogging and there were some more low key/ personal bloggers posting about fashion I related to it all a bit more.

I do like to look at clothes and buy clothes and think about clothes, but I lack the tools to create the high end editorial content we seem expected to produce at this stage in the blogging zeitgeist. I wish I didn't care what people thought about me, but to participate in that realm just feels so completely outside my wheelhouse at this point it seems pointless.

Ok next. What are my actual strengths? I'm a decent writer. Decent to good ok. I'm not faux humble, I do believe that my writing voice is probably the strongest thing in my blogging wheelhouse. Which isn't to say there isn't a ton of room for improvement. I sometimes feel like I use approximately ten times too many words in regards to blogging/keeping people on my page.

We all seem to have the attention span of gnats nowadays. I genuinely try to be concise, but more often than not get a bit carried away with myself. I was an English major who churned out ten+ page papers on the regular, it's a hard habit to break, this wordiness lark. I really need to work on ruthless self editing and making posts that are a little more jazzy/attention grabbing. But also I don't want to dumb down my "content". It's tricky.

The things I like writing about most are:

ME (let's be honest! ;-). But I feel like people will get bored of/are already bored of me! Especially the body positive/diet culture stuff, I know people seek that stuff out who are interested but I don't want to turn off regular readers with it becoming too repetitive either.

What else can I write about myself? I have a lot of personal things I could write about but I haven't, I do hold back a little believe it or not (I sometimes feel like my blog SEEMS more personal than it actually is. Like I've pullled a fast one, do any other bloggers feel this way?). Like I don't share that much of my personal life really.

Also I don't want everything to get too navel gazy. But I guess that was how blogs started, right. But still. I prefer some semblance of kidding myself the world doesn't know ALL my business.

Movies/T.V.: This is one area where I feel like I could be doing much better. I write these magnum opus, far too long posts like three times a year trying to cram in everything I have watched and liked, and it's exhausting for both me and the reader I am sure.

I feel like if I did this monthly at the least it would be much better. I think I have shied away from it because it's a genre I enjoy reading critical thought on, and it makes me nervous because some part of me wishes I could do it on a more professional level (I guess? I don't know. I read a lot of terrible t.v. writing too and think "I write better than that") but also I don't have a word limit so I know I would find that a real struggle.

Also it feels like 90% of film/t/v/ writing is now done by millenials, and they have a different voice/way of seeing things than me, and I feel self conscious because I'm old, which is dumb, there are tons of people my age or older who watch films/ t.v.). And anyway that whole medium (online media) is seemingly currently undergoing some sort of apocalypse, so who even cares, I should just write what I want, someone somewhere has to.

Music (big ?). Do people care about a 40 something woman's opinions on music? Weirdly some of my favourite things to write (and read) on a (now defunct) review site I used to contribute to, were album reviews. I waded right on in there with some writers who I thought were amazing and wrote my own impassioned music twaddle and loved it.

I even have my own (highly unpopular! :-D) music Twitter account - I created it as a sort of safe space where ideally I wouldn't have to see anything other than music related tweets. It has mostly worked, of course you do get some musicians who are way too into politics (just tweet about music please!).

So yes, I don't know. I guess on top of this I would like to develop some semblance of more regular posting this year and maybe go back to prompted posts when I'm feeling uninspired/lazy, because I am a writer who can usually produce something or other when given a nudge - I obviously just can't be relied upon to nudge myself if this past year's output is anything to go by! If anyone knows of any group blog prompts or link ups or whatnot please kindly point me to them, I would like to feel less of a disconnect from the blogging community if possible this year.

Overall my attitude for 2019 so far seems to be: life is short, take no bullsh*t, do what makes me happy, take more chances, and start giving zero forks what other people think about me who don't matter to my life in the grand scheme of things at all. Peace out :-)

5 comments

For what it’s worth, you may have lots of loyal readers who never see your stuff. Your blog notifications end up in my spam folder every single time. I keep marking them as not spam but it makes no difference. Also blogger is a horrible platform to make comments on, and generally interact with so if you ever feel like moving it all to wordpress, it would definitely make the user experience a whole heap easier for some folks.

I hear you about feeling a bit old but I find it kind of liberating because the more old I am the more badly I can behave. The other night I ended up dancing on a table, except my knees don’t really dance anymore and I had to be helped off, like the bit at the end of a James Brown concert when they used to help him onto the stage to do an encore ... only not quite as good!

Thanks M. I appreciate the effort you make! It's weird they go into spam. I admit I use my Google blog reader for most of the blogs I follow including yours. I guess because I am always signed into Google leaving blogger comments is never an issue for me, I have more problems signing into Wordpress. Although with Goggle+ going and (possibly) losing blog comments due to it I might be making the change/move to Wordpress, I just hate the thought of it as am tech useless. I love the vision of you dancing on a table! I once was ejected from a pub in college for such shameless behavior, maybe nowadays they would say "Leave the old lady to her fun! lol.

I think everyone who has a blog, hobby or not, is showing an edited version of their life (intentional or not), it's hard not to?

I have similar goals, to not care so much. I've been posting outfit photos even though selfies and stuff are not things I do well, especially compared to the glossy magazine quality blogging photos that are the majority out there. I limit myself to six or less photos, easier to pick for me.

I've never been able to really connect with too many bloggers, so can't help you there, sorry!

Oh yeah, everything is totally edited, obviously. I guess I just find the whole "I am pretending to show you my real life" thing weird when it's so often staged looking. I love your outfit posts, I don't think we are under any obligation to have fashion posts look like a damn photo shoot personally, I just wanna see the clothes tbh.

About Me

Hi! I'm Steff. I'm an American who lives in Scotland. Expect me to write about a little bit of everything! My most recent passion is body positivity and learning to embrace health at any size. I am a film/t.v. addict and cancer survivor so I write about that sometimes too...no niche yet found! :-)